MV: Martin Goodman had also been publishing three true-crime type magazines for almost a decade, AMAZING DETECTIVE CASES, NATIONAL DETECTIVE CASES, EXPOSE` DETECTIVE and COMPLETE DETECTIVE CASES.

AB: And also crime pulps since the late 1930's.


                                                                          Martin Goodman in 1942

MV: That's true. What about sales across the board at this time? It's long been known that some of the biggest sellers were the teen girl type comics. MISS AMERICA allegedly sold in the millions. Did they outsell the hero titles?

AB: During the war I think the hero books were tops but right after I'd bet the girl books overtook them. The artists on them took the books very seriously because they were such big sellers. There were so many of them. MISS AMERICA was a copy of SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE. Timely wanted to tap into that audience. But by the end of the decade the crime books may have overtaken both. Crime became enormously popular. There were many other titles similar to the two you mentioned that Timely put out. But I never saw actual figures. I have no idea what the numbers were.


  Miss America vol. 7, #39 (May 1951)

MV: Many of the artists drew both types of books. Dave Gantz drew teen and hero books.

AB: And Mike Sekowsky. He drew both and drew them well. He was the best artist Timely had, bar none. He drew everything and drew it fast. His pencils were loose, flowing and exciting.

MV: Yes. Mike Sekowsky, equally at home drawing The Human Torch or Georgie!

AB: That was Mike!

MV: What do you recall about the disbanding of the Timely Bullpen? There have been conflicting stories about that.


                                                                            Georgie #10 (.April 1947)
                                                                            [Sekowsky/ Giacoia art]  

AB: Here's a story about that. They put up a speaker outside of both rooms that housed the artists, about 1949 or so. We called it the "bitch box". Every so often you'd hear Stan yell "so and so come into my office" and you'd know that "so and so" was being fired. It was the voice of doom. I was a bit of a wiseguy and I used to say out loud "I've seen them come, I've seen them go." I said it over and over with each person called in because for some reason I felt very secure. Then one day I heard "Allen Bellman, come into my office."

MV: What exactly did Stan say?

AB: I don't remember. I blanked it out. The details are all blurry now. I knew they were disbanding the staff slowly. I'd guess this was late 1949.

MV: Why were they disbanding the staff?

AB: Well they were cutting the fat. They took inventory and saw they had a lot of work stored. Goodman, Robbie Solomon, Stan Lee, they were all involved in that.

MV: That dovetails with Stan Lee's story of a closet full of inventoried artwork.

AB: Anyhow, as I passed the "bitch" box outside Stan's office on my way out, I hear someone say "I've seen them come, I've seen them go." (laughs). I can laugh about it now but I wasn't laughing then.

MV: So from what you remember the staff was let go slowly over time?

AB: Yes. I was fired about midway through the entire staff firing.

MV: The truth is possibly somewhere in between. Martin Goodman probably took inventory, found a large surplus and instructed Stan Lee, his ax-man, to fire the staff. Stan being close to you guys probably slowly disbanded the staff one at a time over a longer period.

AB: But I was lucky because I got a job right away with Lev Gleason. Charlie Biro and Bob Wood were there.

MV: So you go over to Lev Gleason and join their staff for a while until they disbanded also. Was the Lev Gleason staff different in make-up from the Timely staff?

                                                                     Crime Does Not Pay #99 (June 1951)

AB: It was smaller. There were just a few artists on their staff and it was nice working there. Bob Wood never really bothered anyone and Charlie Biro was in and out of the office, "out" mostly. I remember I and the staff, along with our wives, being invited to Wood's penthouse for a Christmas party. I also did some work for Will Eisner in his office. When Timely's staff ended I found myself knocking on his office door. He gave me a script to do with the understanding I would do it in his office, which I did. He stood over me and wanted me to draw in his style. That was like telling someone to change their style of writing to fit "your" style of writing, or making a left-handed person write with his right hand. I "did" learn a lot from him.

MV: Shortly you were back freelancing for Stan Lee in early 1951.

AB: Yes, Stan fired us but Timely still needed new work. The funny thing is that almost everyone that was fired was back freelancing almost without a break! When Lev Gleason disbanded the staff I was back at Timely and Stan Lee was feeding me scripts again. The only difference was now I could work at home. One day a neighbor knocked on my door saying he wanted me to loan him one of my pages as the other neighbors couldn't understand why I was home all the time.

MV: You were freelancing horror stories, westerns and crime stories. In 1951 Stan tries to do a continuing character feature outside of the girl, super-hero or western books and puts out a new sci-fi series done up in a Buck Rogers fashion. This book is called SPACE SQUADRON and features Captain Jet Dixon of the Space Squadron.

AB: Yes.

MV: What are your recollections?

AB: I wasn't the first artist on that feature.

     Space Squadron #5 (Feb. 1952)
              [Sol Brodsky cover]

MV: No, George Tuska was the first, then Werner Roth after him. Why did those guys only draw an issue or two and leave?

AB: It was just another assignment to them. Whoever walked in would get it unless you were doing something really special. Sometimes you would just find work someplace else and take whatever is offered. Freelancers live a desperate kind of life.

MV: By issue #5 you become the artist. You drew 3 stories in #5 cover dated Feb/52. Then with #6 the title changed to SPACE WORLDS and you drew 3 more stories. There were also sci-fi type fillers by guys like Joe Maneely, Chris Rule and George Klein.

AB: I thought I drew more than 2 issues.

                                                                         Space Squadron #5, pg. 1
                                                                                      (first story)

MV: No, if you did they were never printed but would likely have turned up somewhere as fillers in another book, which they didn't.

AB: It may have seemed like more because I remember that I shared space at that time. I lived in East Meadow, Long Island and shared a studio with Syd Shores in Hempstead. We shared this studio for a while and split the rent.

MV: Do you remember how you got this feature assigned to you?

AB: Basically, I went in for a script and that was the next one!

MV: Nothing else special? You weren't told that this was a continuing, ongoing feature?

AB: No. Still, I could swear I did at least 3 issues!

MV: Only two for certain. There was a back-up feature called Blast Revere that George Klein drew. Chris Rule also drew a feature called Famous Explorers of Space. It was a neat little title.

AB: I'm glad you liked it.

MV: You signed most of these stories but Klein and Rule didn't. Any idea why?

AB: I was always made to feel that Timely didn't want you to sign your work while you were on staff. If you notice, I always signed my freelance work very small. I think Chris and George were just used to never signing their work.

MV: Well I can only think of a tiny handful of times I've seen Chris Rule's signature and I've only seen George Klein's name attributed on a handful of very early Timely features in 1942. The pattern seems to be they signed "very" early on, 1939-43, then most signatures seemed to vanish through the 1940's, making art identification a real difficult endeavor and then not really return until after the freelancers started in 1950-51. Guys like Bill Everett and Carl Burgos seemed to sneak signatures in and of course Stan Lee signed "everything" he wrote.

AB: He was the boss. He could do anything he wanted!

  Junior Miss #26, pgs 24-25
  (Sept. 1947) [a rare signed
     Chris Rule illustration]

MV: Was there a stated policy on signatures?

AB: No, not that I ever heard. We just did what the others were doing. It was hearsay. I also remember being told that they didn't want other publishers grabbing you.

MV: I'm going to throw more obscure Timely names at you. Stan Drake.

AB: A great artist. I have no recollection of him but from what I understand he worked for Timely in some capacity early on.

MV: He did a few early features and then did a lot of early pulp illustrations. What about Bill Walton?

AB: I knew Bill Walton well. He also worked with me at Lev Gleason. A short Irish fellow.

MV: His unsigned Timely work has always eluded my identification. More than one person has placed him at Timely and I'm happy to have you corroborate it. What about Harvey Kurtzman?

AB: Kurtzman freelanced for a short while but I didn't know him. He went over to EC. I have a story to tell you about Al Feldstein.

MV: Please do.

AB: One time, I forget the exact year, I was finishing up one of Stan Lee's freelance jobs when I received a call from Al Feldstein, whom I had never met. He wanted me to come down and pick up a script immediately. Whether I should have dropped everything or not I don't know but I told him that I "had" to finish this job first for Stan as there was a strict deadline. I told him I could pick it up tomorrow as I was dropping off the story with Stan. He finally relented, saying I could finish what I was doing, and I went down there the next day. It was too late. He had given it to someone else. I'll always regret not jumping at that chance.

MV: Where did he get your name and number from?
      Al Feldstein, circa 1950s

AB: I had stopped up there in the past, leaving samples, etc. They had taken down my name and number but I hadn't met Feldstein when I was there. I just left the samples with the secretary.

MV: Wow! What a missed opportunity. E.C. had a small but extremely talented staff. You should be honored to be considered. Al must have liked what he saw.

AB: I like to think he did but in retrospect, I wasn't as accomplished as they were.

MV: Joe Giella was on the Timely staff, wasn't he?

AB: He was an inker who was very quiet as I remember him. I think he later did Mary Worth in the newspapers.

MV: Among other strips as well as a long career for National. I have another obscure name from Timely's past, Frank Torpey.

AB: I remember Frank very well. He was always moving very fast, like The Flash. He ran in and out of Martin Goodman's office conducting his business. I never knew exactly what his business was. Where he came from and where he was going was a mystery to me. I once thought he was a messenger person!

MV: Frank Torpey was the man who convinced Goodman to start publishing comic books in 1939. He was the Funnies Inc. sales agent for Lloyd Jacquet. If you remember him it must have been early in your Timely tenure while Goodman was still buying Funnies Inc. features. As I think about it, he was doing so concurrent to the operation of the bullpen staff for a while so maybe it's not so strange after all.

AB: I saw him around the offices quite a bit and like I said, I never knew what he did.
       
                                                                                      Frank Torpey (1942)

MV: You seemed to vanish from comic books in 1953-54. Although you missed the formation of the comics code, did you hear about Dr. Wertham and the senate hearings on the ills of comics?

AB: I did hear that there was a group of crusaders trying to destroy the comic book industry. This was in the newspapers and in the news on radio. I never thought they would succeed. I never paid too close attention once I was out of the business although they almost made comic books a thing of the past.

         Seduction of the Innocent
      by Dr. Fredric Wertham (1954)

MV: They did succeed in driving out many publishers. Bill Gaines' line was decimated and he was almost driven out also. He hung onto MAD and turned it into a magazine. It became a goldmine. How did your retirement from comic books come about?

AB: By that time I was divorced. When comics started to slow down in the mid 1950's I got a job with Pyramid books on Madison Ave. There I learned layout and drew a lot of cartoons for them. But before that I couldn't seem to get any more comics freelance work.

MV: That surprises me a great deal because while comic books were under fire and many publishers were going under as the comics code came down in 1955, Goodman actually "expanded' his line. He continued to publish a ton of books and continued to buy a vast amount of freelance work. There certainly should have been enough freelance work for you.

AB: Well I had a lot of things going on in my life and it was not a good time for me personally. Maybe that was the reason. It's been so long now. I went through a very bitter divorce and my mind was probably not focused. I was just floating around, going from job to job. There was a publisher on 14th street, a real schlock operation. I worked there for a while. But then I got that job with Pyramid books. They published paperbacks. They also had a men's magazine and I learned and did magazine layout as well as cartoons for them. I also drew the cover and many interior illustrations for a paperback called IMPOSSIBLE GREETING CARDS.    

                 
                                     Impossible Greeting Cards (1957)

MV: What year was that? Do you have a copy of it?

AB: It was 1956 or 1957. No, I don't have a copy. My wife has never seen it either. [Note: Allen had not seen a copy of this book in 45 years. I located one and sent it to him after this interview was given.]

MV: What was the name of the men's magazine?

AB: I think it was MAN'S MAGAZINE or something similar. I remember they had an article on Rocky Marciano in one issue. I was newly divorced and went up to Grossinger's, a country club. Rocky Marciano was there and I told him I worked for the magazine that just did a story on him. His manager was there and told me in no uncertain terms how unhappy he was with the piece. What could I say? Then a few months later I was walking to work and was in front of St Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Avenue and I see Rocky Marciano walking right towards me on the street. He was carrying a small gym bag with him. He recognized me stops to talk for about 20 minutes. I ended up late for work but who cared! I'll never forget that. He was a kind, soft-spoken person. I remember I had one of the first televisions in my neighborhood in Brooklyn and I saw Marciano knock out Joe Louis at the end of Louis' career. Everyone was always over my place to watch television. I had no control over my own apartment! (laughs).
                                                       Allen Bellman and his television make an                                                            appearance in a "Jeannie" story from
                                                                 Margie Comics #49 (Dec. 1949).

MV: Marciano died tragically.                                

AB: Yes, in a plane crash but that was long after he retired. I felt terrible about it. And Joe Louis was an American icon. He was hounded for years by the IRS for money he didn't even have. He was taken advantage of terribly. But getting back to comics, one time I also went over to the Associated Press and they liked my work. I was a copy boy there as a kid. You may ask what a copy boy is. There is no such thing anymore but we watched the ticker tape machines which spit out the news and it was out job to distribute the tear sheets among the writers or reporters. I worked in the RCA building from 12 midnight to 8 or 9 in the morning at the tender age of 17. In our break or supper time hour the other copy boys and I would sneak out onto one of the roofs to join the reporters from the Tass news agency or Reuters news agency, who were into the "going ons" in the residential building across the street! Anyhow, the A.P. was looking for an artist to take over the comics strip Scorchy Smith and sent me over to a Mr. Wing, a bald-headed guy. I'll never forget him. I had my portfolio and he liked my work a great deal and wanted me to do a week's worth of sample strips. 6 dailies without a Sunday. I was very happy but had no one to share it with. I did a single daily and I couldn't go on. Doom and gloom had set in. Every comic book artist dreamed of doing a syndicated newspaper strip. That was the ultimate. I was still living with my ex-wife and I became afraid that I couldn't do it. My home life was terrible in my first marriage and I was afraid to take on the responsibility. My mind was not free of stress and one had to have a free mind to write and illustrate a daily strip. If you sign a contract you have to deliver and I lost my confidence and gave it up. Stan Lee was keeping me busy with freelance work and this was keeping me alive. I was living with a woman who tore up my finished freelance work when we got into an argument. If I had had a wife like Roz at the time it would have been a completely different story.

MV: What a shame.

AB: It really was. That period of my life was shattering emotionally for me. I was floating around in a fog and missed many artistic opportunities to move up. I went from being a hot-shot comic book artist with a wife and 2 children and then it was gone. Maybe if I was married to the right woman at the time I would have stayed in comics or at least in the art field. If only I had met Roz at the time of my first marriage. No, but that wouldn't have worked as I was 20 at the time and Roz was only 10! (laughs).

MV: One of my favorite Atlas horror stories that you drew was called "Vampire Brats".
                                                                    
                                                                       "Vampire Brats" last page
                                                               Adventures Into Terror #4 (June 1951)

AB: That was the story where I put my daughter Judy, who was 3 years old at the time, into the last panel. She had cute pigtails! She was the "vampire brat"! Years later she was married to her first husband, now deceased and she called me up excitedly telling me her husband had found a copy of the issue containing that story. He then put it into a trunk with a ton of other comic books and could never locate it again. At that time I had no copies of any of my comic book work and was dying to find some to show my wife Roz and my children, who had never seen it. It was very discouraging. But then you tracked me down and sent me hundreds of pages. I cannot "ever" thank you enough.          
                                                             
MV: Allen, the pleasure is all mine. I'm just grateful to be able to give something back to you.
                                                                    
AB: Well I always tried my best. What troubled me for so long was the fact that my wife Roz and her 2 children that I adopted had never seen my work. I used to go to comic book stores and flea markets and one time there was a convention in a town nearby but no one could help me and to make matters worse, no one even heard of me. It made me almost feel that I never really was a comic book artist. You've given that all back to me and especially to Roz. It's given my life and my later years a new fulfillment.

MV: Roz is a real sweetheart. When you came up north last year and we went out to dinner she was the loveliest and most gracious host I could imagine. She spent more time doting over my children than she did over you!

AB: That's my Roz!

                   Roz and Allen

MV: Were you aware that Goodman almost went under in 1957 when his distributor collapsed?

AB: No. I was so wrapped up in my own problems that nothing else mattered except my will to survive.

MV: Did you know that Stan Lee later had a huge success with Jack Kirby as they revived superheroes in the early 1960's?

AB: Again no, not really. I repeat. The life of living alone was not for me. I was wrapped up in my own problems and not aware of what was going on in a business I had left years before. I wanted to settle down again and my focus and attention was on that.

MV: Have you kept in touch with Stan Lee over the years?

AB: Yes. When people learn that I worked for Stan they ask me if I could get his autograph for their kids. Kids my eye! I think they wanted it! Stan never let me down. I remember when this friend asked me to get Stan's autograph for his four kids. I told him that he was asking too much and that I couldn't impose on Stan. Stan never just sent his John Hancock. He always included a small gift along with it like a Spider-Man book or hat along with his signature written on the visor of the cap. It always included a hand-written note to me along with it. So when he sent me the four autographs and the goodies that went with it, he wrote back "I'm glad your friend doesn't have 12 kids". Stan is a "mensch", a Yiddish term for a good person.

                                                          Stan Lee and Allen in 1992

[The following part of the interview was conducted "after" Allen was told that his friend Sam Burlockoff was alive and well, having been interviewed independently by Jim Amash for this very same issue!]

MV: I want to talk about Sam Burlockoff a bit. How far back did you guys go?

AB: Sam and I went to junior high school together in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. That's where I bought that first issue of ACTION COMICS in a candy store near the school on my lunch hour. Sam always told me that I was the one who got him into the comic book business. I mentioned to you earlier how one of the very first things we did concerning the publishing world of comics was when we went up to the FAMOUS FUNNIES office while still in junior high. They published reprints only at the time and I don't remember who the guy there was but he was pasting down strips while we were there. We didn't get any work from him, not even a gopher job. Sam and I were great friends. When I went over to his mother's house I ate kielbasa. When he came to my house he ate my mother's pickled lox. We were very close. One time Milton Caniff was going to make an appearance on radio on WOR. There was no television then, only radio. The name of the program was The Benay Venuta Show. We didn't have tickets and went pretending we had them. The studio was on 42nd street in the New Amsterdam Building. We were last on line to get in and when we reached the ticket taker we started an Abbott and Costello routine of each of us thinking the other had the tickets. Finally the ticket taker says "Ah, just go in!" (laughs).
              
              Benay Venuta
 Singer/actress of the 1940s-50s

MV: Not a bad idea. I should try that sometime.

AB: We wanted to see Caniff so badly. We'd do anything to get in. he was our hero.

MV: When you started at Timely, Sam didn't go with you?

AB: No, by that time we had drifted apart as people do after school ends. I was single and saw that ad in the NEW YORK TIMES that Timely was looking for a background artist.

MV: I wonder how many other staff artists came to Timely by the same ad?

AB: I don't know but as I mentioned, I have my late father to thank for it. I didn't want to go and I thought the office would be closed on the holiday. I don't know what I would have ended up doing for a living if he hadn't pushed me. I still don't know what Don Rico saw in me. I had no experience at all.

MV: They needed anyone who could hold a brush. A lot of that early Timely work is crude, as was much of the work around the business. There were a lot of talented artists though.

AB: I started out as crudely as you can imagine but I learned fast on the job. Guys like Mike Sekowsky and Syd Shores were fantastic artists even as young men. I was never in their league. But I never knew what happened to Sam. Many years ago my ex mother-in-law told me a friend of mine from the neighborhood passed away. I was sitting alone at the airport waiting to pick up my children. My ex-wife had re-married and her husband was there. My wife's mother said it was my friend with the bushy eyebrows, which Sam had.

MV: So you just assumed it was Sammy.

AB: Yes and I've thought him passed away for 45 years. I had tried to find him over the years to no avail so I assumed it was him she was talking about.

MV: A few years ago you mentioned him to me when you told me the FAMOUS FUNNIES story and I sent you photocopies of Timely stories he did in 1953 and 1954, just after you left comics.

AB: I had no idea he had later worked for Stan Lee as a freelancer and was thrilled to see those copies.

MV: Then last year Jim Amash asked me if I had ever heard of an artist named Sam Burlockoff because he was interviewing him for ALTER EGO and I froze. I told Jim he was a childhood friend of Allen Bellman and that you thought him long deceased.

      Allen and Sam Burlockoff reunion in 2003

AB: Michael, when you called me and told me to sit down I thought you had bad news.

MV: I knew you would but I had to heighten the suspense!

AB: Then you told me he was alive and well and gave me his phone number and tears came to my eyes. First you gave me back my old comic book legacy and then you give me back my old friend.

MV: You can thank Jim Amash, Roy Thomas and ALTER EGO, Allen.

AB: I do, dearly. And he lives right down here in Florida. We drove out a few months ago and had a just wonderful time together. He didn't look like the Sammy I remember but he sure sounded like him! Sam told me that our old schoolmate Mike Roy worked with him in Washington D.C. drawing propaganda comic books which were printed in Russian and Japanese and working under Edward R. Murrow. Sam said Roy called him from Washington saying there was an opening for an artist. Sam agreed to move his family lock, stock and barrel to the nation's capital for that job.

MV: Anything we've forgotten to talk about?

AB: We've covered so much. I don't think I mentioned that I was a member of the National Cartoonist Society. I was sponsored by Henry Boltinoff, a gag cartoonist and Al Smith, who did Mutt and Jeff. The acceptance letter was signed by Dik Browne. I'll relate another story. A while back Roz and were invited to a cocktail party at the cartoon museum in Mizner Park here in Florida and saw Mort Walker. He had written a hard cover book about his life and it was just out. Now let's back up a good many years and I mean "good many".

I was about 11 or 12 years of age and one of my favorite magazines was a publication called The Open Road for Boys as they always had a cartoon contest. Somehow I thought I remembered Mort Walker's name in the magazine as a winner. I can't remember what I had for lunch today, but in back of my mind his name stuck with me. I asked him if he remembered the magazine and his eye's lit up as he opened his book to a page to show me where he referred to that magazine and his cartoons that won! I too entered the magazine's contests but how his name stuck in my mind all these years is unknown. I never connected the name to Beetle Bailey. Another name from the past is Al Lewis who played Grandpa Munster on TV. I could swear he was a childhood friend of mine from Brooklyn. I knew him as Albert Lewis with a brother named Henry and a single mother.

                                                                  The Open Road for Boys (Nov. 1936)

MV: Have your artistic talents been passed on to anyone else in your family?

AB: Very much so! Jeaneen and Doreen Barnhardt are my twin granddaughters who've made a name for themselves in the art world, especially in Louisville, Kentucky. They did two posters for the Kentucky Derby and one for the PGA. In their younger days they always came out on top in whatever they did. They both won art scholarships to Alfred University in Upstate New York with art in their hearts. Doreen is a top artist at an art agency in Louisville while Jeanen has a studio. Her pictures sell and she is represented by agents here and abroad. The girls at times work together on projects and they recently donated a painting for a great charity cause which brought in a bid of $19,000. Marvin Hamilsh, Barbara Streisand's musical arranger purchased one of Jeaneen's paintings when it was on exibit in the Hamptons in NY. Doreen loves the path she has taken working for an art agency while Jeaneen loves the freedom of doing what she wants to do. Doreen designed a T-Shirt for the Kentucky Derby museum store which won her an award from the commercial art industry. Doreen has a young son named Dane who already made his debut as a model. I can remember when Roz and I went to Louisville to attend the unveiling of their second Kentucky Derby poster in a fashionable hotel. The place was buzzing with reporters and TV people interviewing the girls. FOX News, NBC, CBS and many other news media people were waiting for their turn to be interviewed. Afterwards, we went into the main ballroom where laser lights were glowing in the dark, food was being served and the first posters were being auctioned off. Then the people who purchased the posters lined up for the girls to autograph them. Wow! Were we proud! Later in the evening, with the party over, people were starting to leave and we shmoozed around speaking to the girls and the rest of the family who attended and shortly after we went to our room where we saw the results of the interviews on television.

MV: That is fantastic. You must've been extremely proud of them.

AB: We were. It was very exciting for us all.

MV: Allen, how do you want to be remembered by the students of Timely history and comic book history in general?

AB: That I did my best at all times and respected the job I had. Some fellows hated the work they did hoping eventually they could leave it. I always hoped to move up in the art world but enjoyed every minute of my time at Timely. I thought we were doing important work for the readers of the books. It's funny. I'm getting a lot of recognition now in my old age. I recently did a program down here on cartooning and had a packed house. A woman brought her 11 year old son who wanted to be a cartoonist and another of about 17 wanted to be a comic book artist. They asked me for advice and all I could say was to learn to draw well first and not copy the comic book characters. I told them to copy from photographs, learn anatomy and how to draw a body, a face and clothes as well as animals. They both thanked me and both even asked for my autograph. Imagine that! For the first time in 50 years I actually felt like a celebrity!

                    Bellman cover story
            Shalom Today (April 26, 2004)

 

After the publishing business I became a successful business man and after 18 years we moved down here to Florida where I joined the art department of a major daily newspaper, THE SUN SENTINEL. After that I went into photography. I won many nationwide photography contests, winning out over 20,000 entries or more. That has now become an outlet for my creativity. Photography is the way I now create. I create with my camera. My photos appear in hard cover books, have been on exhibit in museums down here and received great reviews in the newspapers here. I was described in a recent story in the Miami Herald as an artist who now paints with his camera.
                                                                       Allen at Florida Sun Sentinel
                                                                                   comic program

I was waiting in a doctor's office recently and met someone there, starting a conversation. The fellow tells me in a joking fashion "We're supposed to be dead by now". I told him, "No, I've just started to live!" This was because of the recognition I've received about my comic book career recently and my photography awards. It's been a nice cap to my life.



Allen Bellman and his camera.
Below are some of his award winning photos.


             
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